Obradovich: Death penalty is not conservative

Iowa's last execution was on March 15, 1963, at the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison.
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KIICHIRO SATO/AP FILE
Larry Greene, public information director of the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, demonstrates how a curtain is pulled between the death chamber and witness room at the prison in 2005 in Lucasville.
FILE â In this November 2005 file photo, Larry Greene, public information director of the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, demonstrates how a curtain is pulled between the death chamber and witness room at the prison in Lucasville, Ohio. Ohio plans to resume executions in January 2017 with a new three-drug combination, an attorney representing the state told a federal judge Monday, Oct. 3, 2016. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato, File)(Photo: Kiichiro Sato, AP)

Editor's note: This was originally published in February 2017. Lawmakers are considering legislation during the 2018 session that would change to Iowa capital punishment laws.

The death penalty is not conservative. It is not pro-life. It does not serve justice. It does not save taxpayer money; in fact, it costs far more than the existing alternative. It does not uphold Christian values.

It’s no surprise that two capital punishment bills have finally surfaced in the Iowa Legislature. The issue crops up every few years, usually after a particularly shocking and heart-breaking crime breaks Iowans’ hearts.

What’s different this year is that with Republicans in control of both the House and Senate, as well as the governor’s office, there’s a greater chance for serious consideration.

Republican senators introduced two bills last week: Senate File 335 would apply only when a minor was kidnapped, raped and murdered; Senate File 336 would apply to the crimes of sexual abuse and first-degree murder of the same person.

Both bills rest on the idea that a rapist who faces life in prison if caught would be less likely to kill the victim if he could face the death penalty for the murder, if caught. So in order for this bill to save a life, we’d have to rely on the reasoning of a criminal who thinks he’ll get away with rape if the victim can’t talk. That same criminal would have to believe life in prison for rape is a better risk than potentially getting away with murder. On the movie-title scale of “Dumb and Dumber,” this would have to be
“dumberer.”

Keep in mind that the same legislative supporters of the death penalty also voted to eliminate the ability to negotiate over benefits and working conditions for people who put their lives on the line to keep prisoners locked up. Some may soon approve making it legal for people who mistakenly believe they are in danger to shoot and kill a human being. The wild-west “kill or be killed” mindset embraces vigilantism and rejects the value that lethal force should be the very last resort.

Anyone trying to prove that capital punishment has a deterrent effect on violent crime can find studies to support that view. There are plenty of other studies, credible ones, to show there is no deterrent effect. Supporters of the death penalty wave those studies away, saying, “Even if we only save one life, it’s worth it.”

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Kathie Obradovich(Photo: The Register)

Is it still worth it if we execute one innocent man? More than 140 people on death row in this country have been exonerated since 1973. That’s not a study, that’s reality. The people most likely to be falsely convicted are the poor and minorities. If there’s even one fatal mistake, the death penalty is not pro-life, nor does it serve justice. The culpability for a murder is on the murderer. The culpability for a state-sanctioned execution is on the state and its citizens.

It also does not serve the taxpayers. The cost of the death penalty varies by state. But even in Nebraska, each death penalty prosecution cost taxpayers $1.5 million more than the cost of a prosecution for life without parole. That’s according to an August 2016 study by Creighton University economics professor Ernie Goss. The Nebraska Attorney General disputed the estimates, but other states have also seen three to five times higher costs associated with death penalty prosecutions compared with other cases.

Maybe if Iowa was overrun by violent crime, taxpayers could justify the cost. But that is not the case. Iowa was 43rd out of 50 states in 2015 for its rate of 2.3 murders per 100,000 people, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which uses FBI crime statistics in its report. The average murder rate was higher, by the way, in states with the death penalty than in states without it.

I’m not particularly keen to impose my religious values on others through public policy. There are enough secular arguments against the death penalty to persuade state after state to abandon the practice. However, many who label themselves “conservative” have no such qualms. So here’s what Pope Francis had to say last June:

Pope Francis(Photo: AP)

“Nowadays the death penalty is unacceptable, however grave the crime of the convicted person,” the pope said, according to Catholic News Agency.

He called capital punishment “an offence to the inviolability of life and to the dignity of the human person” and said it “likewise contradicts God’s plan for individuals and society, and his merciful justice.”

Members of the Republican majority in the Iowa Legislature want to make the state a model of conservative policy. They have the votes to do it. The death penalty is not conservative, and lawmakers should let these bills die.